


Insecurities

by gillixn (orphan_account)



Category: Black Widow (Comics), Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Featuring Little Natasha in Russia and Angsty Bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 05:00:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1456408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/gillixn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weeks after their daughter was born, Bucky Barnes and Natasha Romanoff, knowing the kind of people they are, doubt themselves as parents. So they go talk to their best friends.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insecurities

1

** Natasha **

“Sometimes when you pick up your child you can feel the map of your own bones beneath your hands, or smell the scent of your skin in the nape of his neck. This is the most extraordinary thing about motherhood - finding a piece of yourself separate and apart that all the same you could not live without.”

-          Jodi Picoult

+

In Soviet Russia, in the city of Stalingrad (which is now known as Volgograd), in an apartment building away from the busy center, there lived a little girl and her mother.

The father left when a few days after his daughter had been born, having thought of the girl as a mistake, but he left his daughter a little doll as a gift and as a remembrance.

The mother cared for the daughter, giving everything her little girl needed. She taught her everything because she didn’t have enough money to send her daughter to school. Even though they seemed to be living of scraps, everything was alright.

Now, the little girl, whose name was Natalia, loved her mother very dearly and aspired to be just as caring as she was.

Her doll was made to look like her. It had the same vibrant red hair and pretty green eyes just like her. She treasured her little doll. She even gave it a name—Natasha. To Natalia, the doll was more than a companion that was always seen sitting beside her. To her, the doll was her own daughter.

She would rock Natasha in her arms and hum the lullaby her mother would always sing to her. She would tuck her into her bed, sit by the bedside, and make up a story to tell her doll. At times, they would go on adventures together, which would consist of journeying around the apartment’s small living room.

+

When their building was set on fire, when she was thrown out of the window and caught by the soldier, Natasha was always by her side.

She would weep before sleeping and having her doll to hug made her feel all better.

+

In her first few years of Black Widow training, she was still a very young girl, so she still continued to play with her doll. She still pretended that it was her own daughter.

“Don’t cry, Natasha,” she whispered to the doll. “Don’t be afraid.”

Natalia herself was afraid, but talking to her doll was where she drew her strength.

+

As she grew up, she’d started to become more fearless and ruthless. She didn’t play with her doll anymore or even talk to it. Natasha was simply a reminder of the past. It was a past that she’d already learned to let go.

Natalia stood by the window of her room with her doll in her hands.

“Mommy loves you, Natasha,” with those words, she threw her doll as far as she could. “She’s very sorry it has to be this way.”

\+ +

Natalia, whose was now named Natasha, waits in a coffee shop. She loves coffee shops. She loves the smell of brewing coffee and the ambience of the place. That’s what made it an ideal place for her to meet with people.

She eyes a certain blonde man who is wearing sunglasses inside the dim-lighted café. She notices that he is walking towards her table. And she knows that it’s her friend.

“Thanks for coming, Clint,” she says.

“Anything for you, Nat,” Clint, former lover, and now teammate and very good friend, replies. He takes a seat on the chair across her. “So how’s your second week of being a parent?”

She sighs. “Honestly? It’s a pain in the neck,”

“Come on, you told me this was your childhood dream!” Clint smiles at her. “I still can’t believe that the Black Widow used to play with dolls. I still can't help but grin whenever I remember the time you told me that.”

“It was a just a single doll, Clint. And besides, I was nothing more than an innocent little girl in Stalingrad,” she says. “But look at me now. I’m a spy and a professional liar. Those two people are different.”

“Whatever you say,” he says, jokingly. “So why exactly is parenting a pain? Is it Bucky?”

“No, it’s not that. It’s just that I don’t feel ready.” Natasha wraps her hands around her cup of coffee.

“When you underwent the vitro fertilization process, you told me you were ready for this. You told me you could handle it. Why in the world would the fearless Natasha Romanoff be unprepared?”

Admitting that she was afraid was something she wasn’t trained to do. But she needs to remember that in this moment, she is a mother, not a spy, not an assassin, but a mother. “I’m afraid.”

“Go on,”

“I’m afraid of what she might think of me. I mean, who would want to have a spy for a mother? Who would want a murderer for a mother? I don’t want her to think that I am a bad person, even though I really am,” Natasha frowns. “I don’t want her to walk in my footsteps.”

“You have an entire year off from SHIELD duties. You know what that means? Don’t think like a spy. Don’t think like an assassin. No to espionage and yes to motherly love and care! Relive your doll days!”

Natasha softly chuckles. “Easier said than done, Clint,”

“Hey, you’re not a secret agent for a whole year. Think like a normal person for once. You just might be overthinking the situation,”

+

Natasha looks at the baby, who was sleeping quietly in the crib. Natasha picks her daughter up from the crib and carries the baby in her arms. She rocks back and forth, humming a lullaby her mother used to sing to her.

She is brought back to the days where she did this to her doll. The days where she’d pretend to braid the doll’s hair, the days where her life seemed to revolve around just that little doll, and the days where the little doll was the only thing that mattered to her. Now, she wishes she had kept the doll, so that she could give it to her daughter.

She isn’t always the killer she thinks she is. It turns out; the little innocent girl from Stalingrad was always still in her.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading the first chapter of my story! I hope you'll stick around for the next chapter! :)


End file.
